Protesters: Primate research wastes money, lives

Please contact Dr. Gibbens and demand that he take immediate action
against the University of California, Davis, for all violations of the
animal Welfare Act. Be sure to insist on severe penalties because
negligence at this lab has killed numerous primates and caused others to
suffer horribly.

Please contact University of California, Davis, Chancellor – Linda P.B.
Katehi -- directly and demand that she initiate an independent
investigation (including involvement by representatives of the Animal
Advocacy Community) of the California Primate Research Center, and that
they begin retiring animals to sanctuaries (including providing funding)
instead of just killing them.

About a dozen people, some sporting monkey masks, protested outside
the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis on Thursday,
accusing researchers of negligence in the death of animals there.

The protest was one in a series — the “Open the Cages Tour” —
sponsored by the Ohio-based group Stop Animal Exploitation Now!, which
has repeatedly accused the center of mistreating monkeys, based on U.S.
Department of Agriculture reports and what the animal-rights group says
is information from a UCD whistleblower.

In a complaint filed with the USDA, which last inspected the center
in November, SAEN cited 14 instances of animals with self-inflicted
injuries in their medical history or post-mortem records between
February 2010 and October 2011.

Through a spokesman, the university denied any wrongdoing.

“Animals housed at the California National Primate Research Center
receive the best veterinary care, and the research program is strictly
regulated by law,” UCD spokesman Andy Fell wrote in an email message.
“The faculty and staff who work with animals are committed to high
quality care and animal welfare.”

SAEN’s latest complaint against the center spotlights a 2-year-old
Rhesus macaque monkey that died of dehydration. Records obtained by SAEN
through public records requests show the monkey suffered diarrhea
repeatedly in spring 2011 before dying in June.

SAEN notes that the animal’s condition was listed as “greatly
improved” on June 7, but the report adds that it had diarrhea and was
receiving intravenous fluids. It later died, but when isn’t clear.

In a June 23 necropsy ruling dehydration as the likely cause of
death, it describes the monkey as “markedly thin and severely
dehydrated” and “infested with maggots,” a condition SAEN says shows
that the animal was not adequately observed.

Another example: a 1-year-old macaque was later found dead in its
cage with the bungee cord from a sun screen wrapped around its neck and
a perch. The necropsy did not settle on a cause of death. Under the
Animal Welfare Act, enclosures must be constructed so that they “protect
the nonhuman primates from injury.”

Fell declined to address specific allegations because those instances
may be the subject of further investigation. He said that UCD reported
the death in October. The USDA last inspected the facility in November.

Since 2008, according to UCD, federal inspectors have visited the
center 20 times, issuing four citations, one each for: incomplete
documentation of antibiotic treatments, the medical record of one animal
not being available during inspection, inadequate records for one animal
and for changing a protocol without prior approval by the campus’
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

The USDA last fined the center in 2005, after an incident the year
before in which a faulty room heater killed six monkeys, Fell said. A
seventh was later euthanized.

Protester Mike Xvx of Portland said he hoped people who live around
facilities like UCD’s 300-acre center, located about two miles west of
the main UCD campus, will learn what’s going on inside and push for
research done without animal models.

“I don’t think any information can be gained from animal models,” he
said. Drugs created from animal testing have “hurt more people than
they’ve ever helped. It’s a waste of taxpayer money, it’s a waste of
knowledge and a waste of life.”

Animal testing continues “primarily out of tradition,” Xvx said, “and
because of the money for the researchers and the university.”

Fell said that research at the center has included the testing of
tenofovir, an ingredient in Truvada. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration approved the pill this week as a way to prevent HIV
infection.

Other research at the center targets asthma, autism and Alzheimer’s
disease.

The center houses about 5,000 primates, about 3,000 of them outside
in 24 half-acre corrals. It employs about 400 people, operating on a
federally funded budget of about $10 million annually and about $24
million per year in outside funding generated by its researchers. A new
20,000-square-foot respiratory diseases center is due to open there next
year.